Results for "pleo"

The Daleks from Doctor Who may be iconic, but take them out into the street and you're not likely to see children and grown adults alike cuddling them, snuffling their little noses and generally coo'ing like crazed doves. For that, you seemingly need one of Ugobe's Pleo robot dinosaurs.

Ugobe's friendly little robot dinosaur, Pleo, seems to have had a brush with extinction. Original plans to fit a non-user-replaceable rechargeable battery - which would last a few years but then, like laptop cells, refuse to hold a charge - have been scrapped in the face of public concern that their prehistoric buddy would meet an untimely end. Ugobe have also released images of the Pleo packaging:

Remember this rubbery little bugger? Yes, that's right, it's Pleo - the robot dino who's almost guaranteed to kick every other home automaton out of the playroom and into the trash compactor. Back in February we brought you news that Ugobe was promising ten of the cold-blooded cuties to winners of an essay competition. Entrants had to answer the following question:

"How do you envision robotic life forms influencing or touching your life in the next five years?"

Well, the entries are in and the judges have had their say; you can read the top ten over at Ugobe's site, but there are some highlights after the cut...

Trossen Robotics is announcing the availability of preorder for the Ugobe Pleo robotic dinosaur.

CEO Matt Trossen, “The Pleo has been the most talked about commercial robot since the Roomba. We anticipate very high demand for this product and are very excited to be carrying it for our customers. As with any new technical product which has garnered a strong buzz, people should reserve their place in line as soon as possible if they want one. We know that we will be tearing open a box as soon as they arrive.”

You probably recognise this cute little bugger - it's Pleo, the robot dinosaur tipped to sweep the board for toy purchases this year. Pre-ordering was meant to begin tomorrow, but the latest news from creators Ugobe is that this has been pushed back to sometime in the Spring, so that they can finish tweaking a number of features.

Photo courtesy of Perspective Branding

Eyes are being redone to look as realistic and life like as possible.

Skin is being refined to have features that are painted on to be replaced with sculpted details that will give the impression of muscle tissue under the skin.

The number of sounds Pleo can make is being expanded on the speaker upgraded to make Pleo's voice much more realistic.

A chin sensor is being added so scratching Pleo under the chin gets an fun playful reaction.

Check out more pictures after the cut, as well as details on how you could win one of ten!

Trading in an Android phone for credit towards an iPhone is now a reality. If you walk into an Apple Store and hand them an Android, Windows, or BlackBerry phone, there’s a good chance they’ll offer you some sort of trade-in credit towards an iPhone. In conjunction with Brightstar, who runs their iOS trade-in program already, Apple stores now take non-Apple smartphones for Apple Store credit. The new program starts today in the US, UK, Canada, Germany, Italy, and France.

This week IOGEAR has announced three new USB 3.0 devices, each of them with data transfer speeds up to 10 times that of previous generation USB 2.0 devices. What we've got here is a SuperSpeed USB 3.0 4-point hub, a Multi-Card Reader/Writer, and an SD/Micro SD Card Reader/Writer, each of them available for under $50. What USB 3.0 allows is improved connectivity and efficiency between computers and peripherals that transfer digital content and create and store it as well - 5Gbps speed at the head of the pack.

Oh my scary this toy better not show up anywhere I'm sleeping. This lovely little dinosaur was first released in 2008 and everyone loved it but apparently noone had the cash to buy one. PLEO creator Ugobe filed for bankruptcy and the company basically went under - until 2009 when Jetta Company Limited decided to re-launch the PLEO by purchasing the Ugobe IP, the company then taking the time to now improve the beast and re-release with a new name and at least a couple new colors. Joy! Nice history lesson, yes? This brand new PLEO goes by the name PLEOrb, ("re-born",) comes in pink or blue or green with all new packaging and a batch of new features!

Google are still apparently plugging away at their Google TV project - big name snubs notwithstanding - but a Swedish company reckons they're already delivering Android-powered functionality in a standalone HDTV. People of Lava's Scandinavia Android TV is a 42-inch Full HD 1080p set with three HDMI ports, a DVB-T digital TV tuner and USB connectivity, but more interestingly it runs Android 1.5 on an 833MHz ARM Cortex A8 processor.